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On the subject of (b), shouldn't tobacco companies be paying the risk premium for their customers? Why does the buck stop at the individual consumers and not th
by AlexandrB 2y ago
On the subject of (b), shouldn't tobacco companies be paying the risk premium for their customers? Why does the buck stop at the individual consumers and not those making money from their misery?
To put it into more technical, economic terms: why should the individual tobacco consumer bear the full cost of their externalities while the tobacco company does not?
- caseysoftware 2y ago> why should the individual tobacco consumer bear the full cost of their externalities while the tobacco company does not? Because people are well aware that smoking is dangerous and can freely choose to smoke or not.
- Temporary_31337 2y agoDefinitely disagree with at least the ‘can freely choose to not smoke’ Nicotine is highly addictive much more so than many illegal drugs.
- caseysoftware 2y agoDon't use quotation marks if you're going to rephrase what I said.
- AlexandrB 2y agoThe tobacco company (also composed of people) is well aware of the health consequence of smoking to its customers yet freely chooses to continues to sell tobacco products. Where's the difference? Actually it's much worse than that. The tobacco company is not just selling tobacco products, it's marketing them and actively encouraging their use!
- ywvcbk 2y ago> shouldn't tobacco companies be paying the risk premium for their customers How would that even work? Any such tax would be priced in into the price of the product. It doesn’t really matter if the government is collecting it directly or through the tobacco companies. Or if we wanted tobacco companies to pay for all the damage they did retroactively they would just go bankrupt, since they don’t have even remotely enough cash/assets to cover it.